NanoTouch, lucid touchscreen navigation

The fine folks at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) are demoing a new touchscreen system that may make small devices easier to use. An extension of their LucidTouch technology, NanoTouch has a small screen on the front and a touchpad on the back. Their test unit features a 2.4inch screen. The screen displays where the user’s finger is on the back touchpad as if the display was transparent. The user’s finger no longer obscures the screen surface, so it’s much easier to hit small buttons. In testing, researchers showed that targets just 1.8mm across were easy to hit. That’s much smaller than the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard. Here’s a video demonstrating the new device.

Sly, watch the video. It is absolutely NOT semi-transparent. It does appear to be a rendered finger. I’m sure you’ll have your choice of finger graphics. Other apps just have a bump in the surface to indicate where you’re touching. The video also shows another device that I’ve seen elsewhere that’s merely a concept device and has a camera mounted on an arm that’s watching your fingers on the back of the device.